The Cult of Hockey's "McD and Dra go wild in win over Canes" podcast

Kurt, two good things, two bad things,

and two numbers.

What's your good thing?

My good thing is Ryan Nugent Hopkins.

The guy gets injured right at the end of training camp and misses the first nine games of the regular season.

And spent some time in the pregame interviews talking about, you know, I'll do my best, try to get up to speed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, all the guy did tonight was play 21 minutes.

a goal and an assist and scored the winning goal in the shootout.

Had four shots and was 60% in the face-off circle playing 2C.

Pretty good night.

You know, this guy is really important to this team's long-term fortunes this year because with McDavid and Drysaddle playing together, he's the only real option as a real 2C unless they go out and get somebody.

So his play down the middle is critical.

And if tonight's any indication...

Long way to go.

He's up to the task.

I thought he got better as the game went on, Kurt.

I thought his play just kept picking up.

That line didn't do much, for instance, in the first couple of periods at even strength.

They were part of the problem at even strength.

But then Hyman picked it up.

And then Nugent Hopkins picked it up.

And finally, Kapanen picked also.

Kapanen had a high event game with some terrible bonehead mistakes.

He did.

I thought Kapanen was easily the weakest guy in that line.